Color Me Dazzled
by Verboten Byacolate
Summary: Alzeid/Rahzel/Heat. Tortured soul, come and sit next to me.
1. sleeping

It's pointless to watch her sleep, because Rahzel's eyes are her best feature.

In the light of dawn they are a clear ocean, with an underlying turbulence. In the afternoon sun they sparkle with intelligence and zeal as she bursts uninvited into another hackle-raising adventure that Alzeid would otherwise be unwilling to engage in. In the sunset of evening, they are an overflowing deep azure; he often finds her crying in the evening. She really must cease barging into the affairs of children. They always turn her into a walking faucet.

When night falls and she has calmed down after a day of adventure, excitement, horror, and sadness, and they bid each other goodnight with a number of words you could count on a single hand, they are at half-mast and almost too dark to count as "blue."

But when she sleeps, they are hidden behind a protective veil of flesh and lashes.

It's pointless to watch her sleep. Alzeid doesn't know why he does it.


	2. drowning

She knows the feeling of drowning all too well, but it doesn't scare her, because she can take care of herself.

If she is drowning, it means she hasn't learned to swim. If she can't swim, she will just kick her legs and flap her arms until she gets somewhere because there is no way she will die without her comrades. Those comrades can swim. They won't drown. Therefore, logically, she just won't die.

She knows very well what it feels like to sink to the depths of something stronger and more powerful than she. She knows what it's like to suffocate. But it doesn't scare her.

Because it's in the moments she can't take care of herself that he reaches out to grab her hand, and she isn't drowning anymore.


	3. assumptions

She's just a girl.

Heat knows that inside of that girl, though, is a brilliant fire, and it excites him. Baroqueheat has always liked people. It is in his very nature to flirt with life and pretty girls, but there is something about Rahzel that draws him in more than others, and he just can't pull himself away. It's the same with Alzeid, no matter how the stoic albino likes to make believe it's not. He believes they are like moths to a flame, and no matter how often they are burned, they tend to pull themselves closer and closer until their final demise. Heat didn't mind Rahzel-chan being his iminate doom.

Depressingly enough, Baroqueheat minded even less that Alzeid was burnt less than he. Perhaps it was because his comrade in love was just a little more wary of the flame than he-- unused to the warmth, more comfortable being mesmerized from afar. The funny part was that the fire in Rahzel seemed to be reaching for the moth in Alzeid. Maybe that old saying was correct; maybe women did prefer detached men. Nothing else would make sense. Alzeid didn't fawn over her like Heat did.

Perhaps...

Perhaps, while Heat's passions didn't have an **off **switch, Rahzel was searching for Alzeid's **on**. It was a logical assumption. Rahzel had always loved challenges, and Alzeid provided her with her greatest one yet.

She was probably digging close to the surface of something big, and when Heat wasn't feeling just a little jealous, he had to admit that when she unearthed whatever it was from inside their pale friend, it would be way beyond amusing. He was looking forward to her results.

But Rahzel certainly wasn't the only one searching. Something was different about Alzeid. Of course, he was still cold, indifferent, and much too blunt for Heat's tender heart to bear. But little by little, there were subtle differences. The albino didn't mind their Rahzel touching him, and he certainly didn't have any qualms about touching her. Rahzel knew that there was more to a man and a woman than romance, but certainly that road was a possibility. There were many paths to love, Heat knew. They might not have taken any of them yet, but someday, after passing so many of the paths, either might entertain the possibility.

If one were to choose that road, Heat knew that the other would follow. They would complain about it, but no matter what words they would exchange, the desire to be together was unmistakable. It was just unfathomable that they would part, even after such an endeavor. Alzeid knew, of that Heat was sure.

She's just a girl, but slowly and surely, she's becoming a young woman.

Heat knows Alzeid can wait. After all, some things just take time.


	4. pointless

He had his gun to her head, but it was pointless.

Alzeid was on the verge of information about his father's murderer, and the orange-haired man at his feet was a mere inch from death or spilling his guts. Either suited Alzeid just fine. And then she waltzed into the tunnel with that bear in her arms, calling his attention with a disruptive "Hey, hey." It was an opportune moment for his hostage to escape. Alzeid clenched his jaw and steeled himself. The girl insisted on not closing her mouth and eventually, Alzeid turned a cold glare on her.

With fewer than ten words between them, much less an introduction, she had already summed his entire existence as "boring" and, in a tone that suggested she was doing him a great favor, proclaimed that she would help to "make it fun."

Inwardly he labeled her "presumptuous," "obnoxious," and "faintly amusing."

He had his gun to her head, but it was pointless. She shot him first.


	5. just looking

Itsy bitsy reference to volume 7. But it's terribly minuscule. One sentence, really.

* * *

At the window he's thinking about it again. His father. Revenge. Lonliness. She can tell. She just knows.

"Alzeid."

He glances in her direction. Rahzel pats the bed lightly beside her and crosses her legs.

"Tortured soul, come and sit next to me."

It's useless and time-consuming to waste pros and cons. He could either refuse and she would throw a fit, or he could keep walking the way he was and drop down beside her, falling onto his back and staring up at the ceiling. She seemed to like that option better.

"You want some hot chocolate?"

"You make it too sweet."

"You _like _it too sweet."

He doesn't answer, and she flops down beside him. But she doesn't look at the ceiling. She stares at him unabashedly, and he feels himself becoming almost twitchy in response. She had sensed his mood. She was trying to make him feel better. He would never become accustomed to people caring for him to the extent of comfort. At least she wasn't touching him. Or saying weird things. In fact... she was oddly silent. Just staring at him. Staring and staring. Rahzel the creeper.

_You have such a beautiful face._

"... what happened to you making that hot chocolate?"


End file.
